


prayers in the desert

by ghostlypng



Series: To Survive A Desert Environment, [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Lance is there for a brief moment, M/M, Mutual Pining, PINING KEITH, SHEITH - Freeform, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Shiro in love, pining shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 20:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostlypng/pseuds/ghostlypng
Summary: Have you ever been so in love with your best fiend that suddenly you realized you wanted to wake up next to him every day for the rest of your life? Even if it was only platonic? - T. Shirogane probably.





	prayers in the desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonoux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonoux/gifts).



Unlike time passing by linearly, no matter if a clock would break, love was weird. It was immeasurable in any mathematical sense, started up sometimes without will and Shiro, like most, fell victim to the way it traveled. He just didn’t expect it to be so sudden and near and most certainly not involving his best friend.

He watches Keith from across the table. Spicy food has turned his mouth and the surrounding skin an angry pink and there’s a wet spot on his upper lip from his nose running. It’s between gross and messy in the way Keith tender to straddle with a nonchalance that had everything to do with the truth that he really didn't care about appearances.

Shiro’s hands sweat a little and he hopes for the family in the small cafe to stop talking and leave already despite the lively conversation going on at their table.

His eyes follow hands as Keith wipe his mouth down, large cloth napkin held open in both hands. It’s endearing somehow and makes Shiro’s heart flutter. His mouth tastes the way numb feels.

“How's your food?” Keith gestures loosely.

Shiro nods, swallowing his bite before answering. “It’s good. A little too much cilantro.”

“Did you want to trade? I know it’s gotta taste like soap.”

“No, it’s alright. I’ll just ask them to leave it off next time.” Truthfully he’s just as likely to order something different or to forget before he asks something he thinks will inconvenience.

Keith sighs with a little half-smile of borderline frustration. “Offers still here.” He gestures at his own large white bowl.

Sharing food isn’t a big deal for most but for Keith it’s an offer of the highest trust and care. A scrappy teenager at heart, despite being just months away from a solid twenty-two, Keith doesn't often make the offer to share anything. He just as rarely asks for anything in return.

It’s something that Shiro’s never quite been able to reconcile inwardly. He can’t stop the rolling urge to guide Keith as best a friend can. As a friend should. He also can’t stop himself from craving more.

Daydreaming of sneaking kisses onto Keith's cheeks when they study, papers spread wide over Shiro’s coffee table but legs brushing underneath from their seated positions on the floor. Just as often picturing hands held so tangled together that Shiro can feel the rough skin of old callouses scratching.

He watches Keith’s lips wrap around the straw of his water and winces as his own stomach hollows out, shriveling up miserably. He turns his attention back to his food before Keith can catch his wistful expression. Being in love with your best friend is hard.

He thinks it should change. Probably even eb away in time but it only shifts. Worming like a snake through sand, an odd imprint of sideways patterns left in its wake. Wide and untraceable to the source of creation. Shiro almost forgets his hesitation when they reach the door to Keith’s dorm after dinner.

Can I come in? Shiro imagines how easy it would be to say if it was just two guy friends hanging out, like Keith probably thought.

“See you later.” Comes out instead, a little too tender for the picture of what they are that Shiro is trying to maintain. If Keith knows, he still gives Shiro the same goodnight he always gives.

The silent walk to Shiro’s own housing gives him space to fantasize again.

This time it’s Keith, of course, but he’s under the stars and Shiro is looking at him. Really looking into his soul through his eyes, rather than the bridge of his nose or the semi-permanent dark circles that hardly ever leave vacancy on Keith’s face.

Imaginary Keith doesn't, can't, tell Shiro he’s a bad kisser or give a grocery list as to why he’s not gay. It’s enough probably. Shiro mumbles things to himself until his brain slows enough to let him sleep. If he dreams, he doesn't remember it but he wakes up feeling hopeful.

“Hey Lance,” He’s supposed to be tutoring the younger man but it’s been twenty minutes of silence and Shiro’s spent it thinking about, again, Keith. “Have you ever.. Been in love?”

For a just a moment, Shiro considers if he should feel embarrassed to be asking someone younger for romantic advice but dismisses it quickly. He’s only ever felt love of a non-romantic variety and Lance talks about his conquests often, both real and over-embellished.

“Well yeah! I fall in love all the time, my mom says it’s just that I’m a trusting person! Someone catch your eye, hmm?” Lance is tossing out words, just to tease, but his arrow hits true and Shiro finds himself stumbling and maybe even blushing the smallest bit.

“It’s not quite that but, I mean maybe there could be. A person.”

“That’s great Shiro! She’s super lucky to have a guy like you interested! Just gotta get her Keith’s approval am I right!?”

Grading chemistry labs suddenly feels of a much higher importance than Lance’s face. “I don’t think that’ll be an issue really.” It’s Shiro who needs Keith’s approval. Sometimes craves it like his morning coffee.

“Well all you gotta do is-” Lance looks up and stops. “No. No no no no. Do not tell me.”

Shiro glances up and regrets it. His feelings are written all over his face and he can see it in the face Lance is making in response.

“Shiro!” Lance hisses.

“You can’t tell! Lance, I’m serious.” He drops his pen to cradle his own head in his hands. “I don’t know what happened. I seriously just. Woke up and felt like this.”

“Well did you try just, I don’t know, ignoring it?”

“Seriously? We spend most of our time together. I can’t just start ignoring him because I messed up and started thinking things I shouldn't.”

“That’s so wrong.”

“I know! Like I said, it just happened!”

“No, dude, Shiro not that! I thought you were asexual and I really sounded like a dick cause, well, you know how Keith bothers me but same thing stands as before. He’s lucky a guy like you is interested. Even if he does have a penis.”

“Lance!” It’s hard to admonish someone when you’re smothering down laughter in a library. Shiro’s still smiling later when Keith comes by to bring him coffee. His expression has questions in it but he doesn't stick around for Shiro to ask how his day went.

Left feeling lonely, even with Lance there, Shiro packs up not even an hour gone and heads home. That’s after he’s spent half that time coaxing Keith to coming over.

“Hey!” Shiro answers the door after a count of ten, fighting the instinct to be overeager.

“Hey. I brought popcorn.” Three bags of uncooked microwave popcorn, extra butter. It’s either a peace offering or a bribe. Either way, Shiro wants to take it for the fact that it’s Keith offering.

“Make yourself at home.” He’s already pulled Keith’s favorite of his throw blankets out of the dryer and tossed it neatly over the back of the couch. Unlit candles were also set out pre-arrive to make things, hopefully, smell nice but not look romantic.

Ever overachievers, they trudge through schoolwork while the movie plays in the background. It feels like just an hour but midnight is already rolling in, Keith greeting it with a yawn.

“You can stay the night.” Shiro offers. He can see Keith think it over. There’s clothes in a drawer that are rolled tight and too small to be Shiro’s, along with a spare toothbrush that lives on his bathroom sink in a plastic cartoon character cup Shiro didn’t buy.

The things Shiro lost of himself were far outweighed what he gained with more and more of Keith in his life. If it wasn’t love it was a crippling dependency, all too addicting.

“Yeah. Okay.” Keith concedes, his arms stretched over his head till his elbows pop entirely too loud for Shiro not to wonder if it’s painful. “I’m gonna shower then.”

The knowledge of the way Keith is beautifully, incredibly and painfully flexible beyond what someone who isn’t a dancer should be strangles Shiro. He’s witnessed Keith dislocate shoulders and fingers grotesquely, never once needing Shiro’s help to shift things back into place.

Shiro rubs the sides of his head, feeling the soft buzzed hairs and tries not to feel haunted by his own sinful lust played to a soundtrack of running water.

Keith comes out, hair bunched on top of his head in a ponytail that’s pointed straight up. It reminds Shiro of a little sprout and cools his pulse, even as Keith curls up under the blankets facing him.

“So,” Keith starts and stops just as quickly.

“So?” Shiro blinks, sleepy eyes starting to close without his permission.

Keith hesitates. “If you could live anywhere for a week, where would it be?”

It’s a game they play so they don’t slip up in the dark and say something they can’t take back in the morning light. Not that Shiro thinks he would but Keith is a different story. A creature frightened of his own feelings, afraid of the way they hunt him.

“The Grand Canyon.”

“What changed since last time?”

“The sun would be nice. And I feel like I’m over going to the beach.”

“Hm.” Keith rolls onto his back, pillowing his head on one arm. “You sure it’s not just because you’re subconsciously thinking about being on Mars?”

“Maybe I am.”

“I love how red it is. It’s kinda fitting right? Mars and that he’s about war and the planet is red. Plus the storms.”

“Yeah.” Shiro mumbles, almost all the way gone into dreams. He thinks he’s asleep for a second but he hears his own name.

“Shiro.” It’s Keith, whispering like a child with a secret to share during quiet time. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Shiro thinks he smiles and if Keith says more he misses it, their fingers tightly laced together as Shiro slips fully to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments? Questions? Concerns? Hopes, dreams, aspirations?  
> Points of conjecture?


End file.
